“Now, Dara of Westwood,” Sir Festaran asked in a friendly voice, “can you climb back inside of your bird and tell us what our foes are up to?”
* * *
The first attack down the road came midmorning, when thirty heavily-armored infantry men marched down the hill, two-by-two. They bore their shields in front of them, their spears on their shoulders, and walked with an arrogance and cockiness that angered Dara. She was about to see that cockiness put to the test.
Sir Festaran allowed the invaders to advance unchallenged until they were half-way down the long slope. When the first of them came within range of his farthest-set archers, all of the Westwoodmen on the eastern side of the road opened fire. From her tree-top vantage point, Dara could see the shafts quietly let fly in a ragged volley, from positions all over the eastern side.
The West Flerians quickly moved to defend themselves from the surprise attack. Unfortunately for them, the shallow ditch on the eastern side of the trail gave them little cover from the arrows, and their attackers were spread out enough so that they only way they could defend themselves was to collect all in one place, using their great wooden shields to cover each other. Men fell by ones and twos as arrows found their marks, and the shouts and screams from the road were pitiful.
Just when the West Flerians were preparing for a counter-attack, to leap across the ditch and give chase to the lightly-armored Westwoodmen, the women of the wood let fly with their own attack – directly into the unprotected backs of the invaders. The sound of bowstrings twanging was unheard as the men tried to defend themselves from the front. By the time the first shafts fell among them, it was too late.
The leader of the sortie was wise enough to know when he’d been beat. He called the retreat and the remaining West Flerians scrambled back up the hill to the pass, leaving twelve men on the ground behind them.
“That’s the spirit!” the young knight cheered, when the report came back down the trail. “That will teach them that they can’t just walk into Sevendor!”
Dara continued scouting by falcon for the rest of the morning. Near noon, she saw the West Flerians preparing another sortie. This time the Westwoodmen prepared a more aggressive response. Sir Festaran took twenty men – including her father, uncle, and brothers – up the trail to the first switchback, where a blind landing gave them some cover from above. There they waited until, once again, the Warbird’s troops began marching down the mountain, albeit with more caution this time.
Shields held carefully to their sides, against the scattered sniping, the West Flerians descended in force to halfway down the trail. The hail of arrows from the western side of the chasm was more relentless, so they favored that side, but whoever was in command of the sortie had figured out that running the gauntlet of arrows would be easier if the invaders began running, instead of walking slowly and presenting easier targets.
Dara couldn’t fault the logic of the enemy commander, but she watched with grim amusement as the West Flerians broke into a run. While that did, indeed, make it more difficult for the defenders to hit their targets, it also scattered the West Flerians. It also gave them ample opportunity to stumble and fall down the trail, which they began doing with increasing regularity. By the time the force was near to the final quarter of the run, a third of their number had been wounded or slain.
Then Sir Festaran sprang his trap, and for a few hot, heart-stopping minutes Dara watched her family in battle through Frightful’s eyes.
Her father swung his sword with efficiency, picking his targets and carefully but decisively thrusting and cutting as needed. Her uncle had chosen a battle axe from the manor’s armory, and he was hacking away with it like he was cutting firewood for the winter. Her brothers Kobb and Kasdan danced on the edges of the battle and struck from the flanks with their spears, while her cousin Kinden, a keen-eyed lad who spent more time ranging the woods than in the hall, was slashing away at the disoriented foes with a long hunting knife.
But Dara had trouble sparing any attention for anyone but Kyre. Her oldest brother strode commandingly into the middle of the battle, where his uncles and father fought shoulder-to-shoulder, and he began making fast, hard strikes in support of everyone he saw. His new sword whirled in the air, and he wielded it as if he had been fighting since boyhood, not a few short days. Dara was morbidly fascinated to see him not just fight, but use his enemies against themselves. He was nimble and sure in his movements, his arms constantly in motion and his feet never still for long.
The sudden and unexpected attack by the defenders pushed the remainder of the attackers back up the hill, and they faced sniping from the sides the entire way. Sir Festaran did what he could to press the attack all the way to the top of the ridge . . . but when he made the third landing, thirty men behind him, a volley of crossbow bolts from the pass stopped him.
“Those are war bows, not hunting bows,” Sir Festaran said, panting, when they returned to the first landing. “They’ve got a longer range and they penetrate armor like hot tea in the snow. They can put an iron quarrel clean through an oaken shield, at range. And with that height advantage we’re going to have a hard time getting up there.” Only two men had been hit by the insidious things, but that was enough. Both men had to be carried back down the mountain and all the way to the castle.
“They keep getting reinforced,” Dara reported, dutifully. “Frightful sees another score marching up the northern side of the slope.”
“Once they have enough,” counseled one of the other soldiers from the castle, as he gazed at the pass above, “they won’t hesitate to send a hundred men down that trail. We couldn’t stop a hundred men, not if they have crossbows.”
“Sure we could,” Uncle Keram dismissed. “They have to get through the gauntlet from the Seven Steps, first. Then they’d have to meet us on the trail, where they can’t put more than two men abreast, or at one of the landings, where we can bottleneck the trail.”
The argument went on for some time, as everyone caught their breath – too long, as it turned out. Another sortie tried to descend the trail a few hours after noon, and Sir Festaran elected to meet them on the second landing. That had the advantage of forcing one half of the line to hold a shield wall against the women of the Westwood’s withering fire while the other half fought. A few strategically-placed snipers and Sir Festeran were prepared when the West Flerians fell on the second landing.
The battle was heated, Dara knew, for she had remained back at the base of the mountain and was flying overhead with Frightful. She witnessed the relentless attack, the desperate defense, and the methodical archery of her folk. While only a third of the arrows fired found their marks, the ever-present whiz of shafts among them kept the West Flerians too distracted to press their assault.
Sir Festaran bravely led a countercharge, once the foe closed with them. The lanky young knight threw himself into the battle with bravery and enthusiasm, Dara noted. Though he was not nearly as graceful or deadly as her brother Kyre seemed (when she saw him shoot a man trying to flank the landing, then drop his bow and draw his dagger in time to stab the arm of another opportunistic West Flerian, Dara began to suspect that her oldest brother had a talent for battle), Sir Festaran was undoubtedly leading the effort.
He gave orders that made sense and were followed; he called encouragement to his men as they beat their swords and spears against the shields of the West Flerians, and then he yelled curses at the foe as he pushed his shoulder between their shields and struck at them with his own blade.
The work was hard and hot, and the field quickly became bloody as more men fell; mostly, Dara noted with relief, among the attackers. When the West Flerians finally sounded a retreat and limped back up the mountain, another ten men lay dead along the trail to Caolan’s Pass. Eight of them were West Flerians.
But none had stepped foot on the floor of the valley, yet. That, Sir Festaran assured them, was a victory in itself.
When Dara reported that a large contingent had b
roken off from the main group at the pass and was seeking a way down through the high trails, Sir Festaran took the initiative and pressed a surprise attack that afternoon. There was no easy way down from the ridge that way, everyone in Sevendor knew – the cottages in the high meadows along the ridge were tiny and isolated, almost another world altogether from either the farmers of the vales or the woodsmen of the forest. Most of the residents of the ridges had been evacuated to Sevendor Castle days ago. Their cots and fields would be empty, up there, and the men sent to investigate them were too far out to be of use to their comrades.
Only twenty men held the pass when Sir Festaran launched his attack. A few of the Westwoodmen (including her brother Kobb, she realized) had volunteered to climb the steep and unforgiving slopes outside of the trail, a difficult task even for those who knew it well. When the bowmen were in place, they began firing on the sentries, allowing Sir Festaran and Keram and Kyre to lead half of their force to attack the pass.
That had been another hot battle and longer than the first two skirmishes. The West Flerians who held the pass were well dug into the site, and only surprise and a quick advance kept them from clearing the trail with their crossbows. As it was the ten-minute battle ended in defeat for the Sevendori when more reinforcements from the other side of the ridge arrived.
Sir Festaran was loath to give even an inch to the foes, but enthusiasm and valor were not protection against arrows. Though they had made impressive gains at the top of the ridge, the West Flerians drove them back again. Realizing he was overmatched, the young knight led his men in a strategic retreat down to the third landing. The West Flerians saw the momentum change in the fight, and they pursued to the landing. Sir Festaran had hidden several of the Westwoodmen there to cover a retreat, if necessary.
They fired adeptly at the mercenaries who followed, and for a few moments it looked as though the momentum had changed again. But then some crossbowmen sent down the rugged slopes found a spot from which to shoot, and between them and the mercenaries, the fate of the Sevendori defenders was in doubt. Sir Festaran himself fought bravely next to Dara’s brother Kyre and her cousin Kinder for awhile, each incapacitating a man before falling back, while she watched from Frightful’s eyes.
A particularly large mercenary bearing a wide blade and a shield the size of a barn door broke through the line of Sevendori with a powerful bellow. He turned to strike at them from behind, and Dara realized that none of her friends could even see where he was, much less defend against him.
Without even realizing it, Dara’s anger and fright at her brother’s life welled up inside her, and she began directing Frightful almost automatically. She flew the bird into the big mercenary’s face, pecking madly at his eyes through his helmet with her sharp beak, while her talons raked across his armor. Dara felt united with Frightful in a terrifying new way: their anger had joined together, and that anger transformed into violence. To Dara’s surprise and horror, that violence felt good to express in defense of her friends.
Even though she did little damage, Frightful’s unexpected attack kept the big mercenary from hitting anyone. He swung around wildly, clawing at the air with his sword while he ducked his head to avoid the manic pecking at his eyes.
A horn suddenly sounded at the far end of the landing. Dara sent Frightful skyward to recover, circling over the battle. That’s when she saw the large form of Sir Cei, in full armor. The big Wilderlands knight lead a party of soldiers into the fray in support of the Sevendori, his Wilderlands greatsword slashing relentlessly against the enemy. He blocked the mercenary’s next attack, pivoted around on one foot, and drove his sword against the man’s helm, hard. Though the blade’s edge failed to connect, the blow was hard enough to send the man sailing off into the rough next to the landing, his sword and shield flung wide.
The unexpected reinforcements allowed Sir Festaran to withdraw his forces without losing a life – though the Westwoodmen’s archery took a few. Sir Cei and his men, arriving so forcefully, pushed the mercenaries up the trail . . . those who did not fall before his blade. When Dara was certain that Sir Festaran and the Westwoodmen had made it safely out of range of the crossbowmen still lingering along the trail, she sent Frightful back to her and then withdrew her consciousness. She waited impatiently for the defenders to arrive in the lowest landing, and didn’t properly breathe until she saw all of her brothers and uncles- and especially her father - in the flesh.
“We’ll stop here, for today,” Sir Festaran said, panting through his helmet once he’d seen the survivors (her brother Kobb had been stabbed in the arm, she saw, but it didn’t appear to be serious) safely back down the mountain. The young knight was himself nursing a wrist wounded a wrist sprained in the battle, and now carried his sword in his left hand. “They won’t try to descend at night – actually, I hope they do – and we can see about some reinforcements ourselves on the morrow.”
“A unit of militia from Southridge is already preparing to march,” assured Sir Cei, as he left the trail, pulling off his helmet. “You did good work here, today, Sir Festaran. You led your men well, and got them down alive without losing a one. Perhaps when this is over,” the big knight said in his thick accent, “I can speak to the Magelord about lifting your ransom and offering you a post as deputy castellan.”
“That . . . that would be a generous offer, my lord,” Sir Festaran said, bowing uncomfortably. “But I fear it is poor precedence to reward failure.”
“Failure is in the eye,” Sir Cei countered. “Thanks to your attacks, the West Flerians will be far more hesitant to come down that slope. They know that it is held, enthusiastically and in force. They won’t try again until they have far superior numbers, or are relieved from this side of the ridge. We can set some scouts up above to make certain. And tomorrow we can re-assess their strengthand consider how we might dislodge them.
“But for now,” the castellan said, gazing up the trail, “we’ll just hold here and make sure none of those . . . gentlemen,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “make their way into Sevendor tonight. That, at least, we can do.”
* * *
The Flerians did not attack that night, nor did they try to come down the mountain at dawn, just as Sir Cei predicted. Dara encamped all night with her brothers, though it would have been easy enough to return to the manor, because she did not want to miss anything – and she thought she might be of use. Not that she could fly Frightful at night, but she could not imagine not being there with them as they stood guard.
But the expected dawn attack did not come. At dawn there was no attack. The scouts reported that the West Flerians merely made breakfast and guarded the pass. Indeed, they seemed content to hold the site and wait, a fact that irritated Sir Festaran to no end.
“If they would attack, we can whittle them away by attrition,” he griped, as the day wore on. “But if they just sit up there . . .”
“I don’t see as we have a choice, my lord,” Uncle Keram pointed out to the younger man. “We’ve shown them that we can deny them the trail – but if we cannot retake the pass, then they are likely ordered to hold it against us while their fellows work against the Diketower. Any weakness on our part will be exploited, to Sevendor’s defeat.”
“You may be right,” muttered Sir Festaran. “While we’ve been fiddling with this lot, the Diketower has been attacked thrice – and held,” he added, proudly. “As many as five hundred men have attacked it, and it’s held. Surely we can do as much here.”
The West Flerians were content to stay up on the ridge, Dara reasoned, so there was no real need of her falcon hanging around them. Intrigued by the story of the other battles, Dara convinced Frightful to veer away from Caolan’s Pass and seek out the main entrance to the vale.
The devastation was impressive and sickening, once she realized those cast-off-looking dolls on the ground were grown men who had fallen. Just beyond the Enchanted Forest there was a large gathering, hundreds of men and horses, and there seemed to be
places farther back where construction had begun on various things. Dara thought it odd that the West Flerians would be building anything, so she landed Frightful unobtrusively in a nearby tree and looked over the busy workmen.
It was hard to say with certainty, but Dara became convinced that they were building some sort of siege engine. She’d heard of the things, of course: a huge machine capable of hurling boulders or other missiles against a fortified wall – or over it. Though the West Flerians looked as if they were in the early stages of construction, they seemed to know their business. She told Sir Festaran, who understood the gravity of the information and had her make a report to Sir Cei.
After that, Dara reported to the Castle every morning to help scout. The West Flerians occupying Caolan’s Pass weren’t attacking, Sir Festaran and the Westwoodmen were unable to re-take the position, so there was really little she could do of value there.
But scouting the much larger army was helpful. Their attacks on the Diketower became insistent, and preparing the garrison for whatever Sire Gimbal felt like throwing at the Sevendori that day gave them an edge. Gareth was there, these days, lending what little magical assistance he could. The young mage was entirely dedicated to defending his adopted home, Dara could see when she spied him through Frightful’s eyes. But his powers and abilities seemed inadequate to the task. Though he knew some warmagic, as he had bragged, his spells were not highly regarded by the folk he was ostensibly protecting. He looked more and more dejected about that.
Dara pitied him – Gareth was so earnest, so smart, and so friendly it pained her to see him try and fail at things his colleagues could do easily, thanks to their witchstones. He was very smart, but without that power he wasn’t very effective. The most he had been able to do was deduce which tents the Censorate warmagi were in.
Dara was about to say something to him, one day a week into the siege, after a spell he’d hoped would discover the exact location of the Warbird failed. He looked distraught, his thin face contorted in anger at himself. Zagor was there, and Dara witnessed how adept the hedgemage was at talking to Gareth, but it was clear that the young wizard was frustrated. Gareth had thrown a book across the room, after his spell collapsed. Zagor was beginning to sooth him with a tale when the door to the tower room burst open.
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